Dennis and the Academy
by dances-alone
Summary: It all started the day Colin received his acceptance letter to Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft, Wizardry, and the Natural Sciences. Things have changed since the arrival of The-Boy-Who-Lived. But have they changed for the better? Spinoff of "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" (HPMoR); AU inspired by that fanfiction up to chapter 95, perhaps beyond.
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

I sit with a my quill and parchment, in the Hufflepuff common room, at a desk by the window, looking out over the Forest. Not the Forbidden Forest. Never again. Just the Forest. An ordinary scene, even though everything has changed.

It's been a strange year, and in many ways a rough year, but looking at what I just wrote, I almost have to laugh. Here it is 1995, and I'm writing with a quill. It was only three years ago that I was learning to hold a quill, and getting used to parchment. The parchment was easy enough, but even a magic quill takes some getting used to after the pencils and felt-tip pens we always wrote with in primary school. Not to mention how weird it seems to describe a witchcraft and wizardry school as ordinary.

I'm muggle-born, you know, and only in my third year at Hogwarts, so I feel rather honored that Headmistress McGonnagall has asked me to document what happened this year. The changes that have occurred have been plenty to deal with by themselves, especially regarding my brother Dennis, but it still feels good to have been asked. When McGonnagall asked me to put together a report on what happened, I didn't even know where to begin. She reassured me that my account wouldn't be the only one, that she's also talked to Draco, Hermione, Professor Sprout, the centaur Firenze, and a few others. Her words still sit with me: "The important thing, Mr. Creevey, is to place quill to parchment, and write down as much as you can remember. Too much information was lost after the events of 1992. This year has been almost as disruptive, if not more so, and I do not choose to permit this one to go undocumented. Given your unique position, your contribution will be invaluable. Don't get too much hung up on polished writing. The key is to make certain that you are as complete in your report as possible."

I still have trouble getting my head around the Transfiguration professor encouraging unpolished writing. I guess what I'm trying to say, to you, whoever is reading this, is that I'm sorry that what I'm writing here is so disorganized and informal. In particular, I'd like to apologize to you, Headmistress McGonnagall. I know that you gave me permission and all, but I also know you'd never forgive this level of sloppiness in a Transfiguration essay.

So, where to begin?

Dennis is gone. There, I said it. I have no way of knowing whether any of us will ever see him again. Is he dead? I don't know. In some ways it doesn't even seem to matter. He's gone. The strange part is that it doesn't even really hurt. At first I wondered if there was something wrong with me, but even my mother didn't cry very much. That part is definitely reassuring. I realize Harry probably won't think much of me when he reads this, but I suppose I'll have to deal with the consequences of taking McGonnagall's advice and just writing things down. Evidence: my mother didn't cry much. Conclusion: somehow my brother must really be all right somehow. Maybe dead, maybe not, but somehow definitely in a better place. No rational thinking skills required for ___that_ line of thought. Just admitting that much might even be enough to get my membership in the Chaos Club revoked.

I do wish he would understand. Sometimes I think that maybe he will after all. My feelings now aren't all that different from what he's said about his willingness to test the hypothesis that Hogwarts and magic are real, back when he got his acceptance letter four years ago. Astonishing claims require astonishing evidence, he always says that. But if his own account is to be believed, he didn't dismiss the idea right away. Of course, he was able to test the hypothesis, however strange it was. I'm not really in a position to do that. No, he won't understand.

All right, let me try to at least try to get things into chronological order. But where to start? In Dennis's first year? No... that's not really when all of this started. I guess I should start with the point at which Dennis first found out that magic was real. Which was of course was around the time when I got my own Hogwarts acceptance letter. All right, here goes.

___Colin_ _Creevey_

___May 10,_ _1995_

___Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft, Wizardy, and the Natural_ _Sciences_

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**Author's notes:** In hopes of avoiding long update gaps, the plan is to update (roughly) twice a month. The first real chapter should be published on or before January 1, 2014.


	2. Chapter 1: Photography

**Chapter 1. Photography**

I guess it's not that unusual for Muggleborns at Hogwarts to have had a hard time fitting in back when they were attending Muggle primary schools. I, for instance, was really never as sporty as most of the other boys at my school. I was never good at playing rounders, and really didn't enjoy it very much, and the other kids – boys mostly, but some of the girls too – made fun of me for the fact that I preferred to mess around with the camera my parents had given me. My mother told me that she never really fit in either, and that if I was just patient that things would get better.

Patient. She had no idea. I guess she probably thought that as my classmates and I grew up, the differences wouldn't be so important. Well, that and the fact that she was also quite certain that I was gifted in the visual arts and that someday what she saw as my immense talents for photography would get the recognition they deserved.

Did she imagine for one moment that the photos I took would come alive when they were developed? How could she? Personally, I was terrified when I found out. I still remember the shock I felt the day I took out the photographs I'd taken at my school's May Day celebration and saw that some of them (only some of them) moved. I was sure I was going crazy, and in my panic, I quickly stashed the moving photos in the shoebox I keep under my bed. When she called me over to show her the beautiful pictures I'd taken, I only showed her the ordinary ones.

She exclaimed how talented I was, as she always does, but I almost lost my lunch when she said, "Look how you've captured the movement of the maypole dance!"

I'm sure I mumbled something like "Er, what?" as I hurried over to take a look, but the photo she was holding looked normal, and she just went on as she normally did. Then a moment later she happened to look up at me, and her face transformed with sudden concern. She said I looked pale as a ghost, and was I feeling ill. I don't really remember exactly what happened after that, except feeling vaguely confused as she herded me off to bed. I think she brought me some tea and dry toast a bit later, but of course I wasn't so much ill as scared. When she came back later she said that I had certainly eaten quickly, that since I looked a lot better, I'd best come down to dinner.

I actually managed to convince myself that I'd only been imagining the thing with the moving photographs, and promised myself I wouldn't think about it any more. I almost managed to forget about the photographs under my bed until a few months later, when I happened to look over the batch I'd taken on the family holiday in Venice. I flipped through comfortingly static shots of the gondaliers steering their boats, and the merchants selling colourful masks.

Then I dropped the stack in alarm as I flipped one over to reveal a lively flock of pigeons descending into a piaza, devouring scattered bread crumbs, and then shifting to hungrily crowd around a gaudily dressed American tourist who wasn't emptying his bag of crumbs quickly enough to satisfy the flock.

Dennis came in just then, and I hurriedly shoved the remainder of the photos into the shoebox, before gathering up the "safe" pictures I'd already looked at to show to Mum who I knew would be waiting downstairs. I didn't escape without rousing his suspicion, though. Little brothers have a way of making life difficult. They always come in at awkward moments, and never know when to leave well enough alone.

"What are you doing?" he wanted to know.

"Nothing."

"What's in that box? Is it alive?"

Dennis was always obsessed with insects, birds, and animals. I happened to know that he had a pet tarantula he kept hidden in a box in the back of our closet. The tarantula's name was Rose, and if Mum had known he had her, she would have thrown a fit.

Sometimes when Dennis thought he was alone he used to take Rose out of the cage-box she came in and talk to her by name. He said that she could understand him, and that she always let him know when she was hungry for crickets. Not knowing about magic at the time, I of course thought this was extremely childish, and a little daft. Maybe I should have wondered a bit after the weird photos that had developed from my camera, but at the time I was still sure that all that was in my head. Well, almost sure.

"It's just my stuff, and it's not your business. How's Rose?"

Dennis looked defensively at the closet, and I knew that as soon as I left the room he'd hurry over to check on the spider. So I took my time. I got up, headed for the door, then casually ambled back to the nightstand to get the little pile of safe photos from Venice, dawdled a little bit as if perusing our bookshelf, and then wandered downstairs. I could hear Dennis scrambling for the closet after I left, and smiled a little.

I found Mum reading at the kitchen table, and sat down next to her. When she looked up, I said, "Here are the best photographs from Venice, Mum. I know you wanted to see them," and handed her what I had. She smiled and put down her book to take a look. With a little bit of embarrassment I listened as she cooed over each one in turn. "Look at the colour!", "Beautiful composition in this shot from the mask shop!", and so on. She said that I was talented beyond my years and that I should find a way to show these in a gallery somewhere. I mostly shrugged these remarks off. Appreciation is great and all, but she's my mum, and I don't even know what she means by "composition." I just took the snapshots that I thought would look nice.

When she'd finished showering praise and insisted on putting a couple of them into the family album, I took the remainder upstairs. I walked quietly, working to time things so that I could walk in on Dennis playing with his tarantula and make him feel uncomfortable.

I walked in to find him sitting on my bed. He knows I don't like it when he does that, but I barely noticed where he was sitting, once I took in what he was doing. My shoebox was open on the bed next to him, and he was holding the thick stack of photographs and gaping at the pigeon picture.

"This is bloody brilliant!" he said, and then added "Rose thinks so too. How did you do it?"

"I don't care what bloody Rose thinks," I told him, "You stay out of my stuff, and keep that tarantula off of my bed, or I'll tell Mum!" I added the last part as he guiltily got up from my bed, setting the photographs aside, and turned to pick up Rose who had been sitting on the bed next to him.

He shuffled over to his own bed, and then sat there holding Rose, and asked again, "How did you do it? You're always fussing with that camera, but I've never heard of anybody taking photographs that could move!"

After a moment, I went over to my bed, carefully brushed off the area where the spider had been sitting, and threw myself down on my bed. I was furious, but I guess I was also relieved: I wasn't insane. Dennis could see the pictures move too.

Another minute later, he asked again, "How did you do that?"

"I don't know," I said. I really had no idea. "It just happened. I honestly thought I'd gone daft." And then I realized how relieved I really felt. "Do you have any ideas?" I asked.

I didn't know whether to be annoyed or what, when he first shrugged, and then looked at the spider as if he thought maybe she'd have something to add. Then he just shrugged again, and said, "Not really. Have you showed these to Mum and Dad?"

It was really good to have somebody to talk to, and we debated for a while about the wisdom of showing something this weird to our parents. In the end I decided to put it off until the next morning, and to try to figure out the right way to bring it up, and maybe show one of the May Day photos to Dad tomorrow. The several moving pictures of the maypole dance somehow seemed less startling than the pigeon picture. I don't know why. Probably something about the cyclic movement of the children holding the coloured ribbons. There was just so much going on in the pigeon picture. People wandering in and out of the frame, and interacting differently with the pigeons all the time. The maypole picture was just more believable. I almost felt like I'd seen something similar in a travelling hologram exhibit we saw one time.

So, I planned: I'd show the photo to Dad, and ask if he'd ever seen anything like it. I wouldn't say I'd taken it, and he probably wouldn't notice that it was the pole from our own school's fair. Maybe he would have an explanation.

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**Author's notes:** The next chapter should be published on or before January 15, 2014.


	3. Chapter 2: The Letter

**Chapter 2. The Letter**

The next morning was Saturday, and Saturday meant bacon and eggs for breakfast. Mum gets up early and cooks. The rest of us sleep in.

It had taken me a while to get to sleep the night before, as I kept rehearsing exactly how to bring up the weird moving photos with Dad. I slept lightly, and Dennis was still snoring when I got up in the morning. I remember being momentarily jealous that ___he_ didn't have to worry about how to start the awkward conversation.

I picked up the May Day photo and looked around. After some thought, I grabbed a book at random from our bookshelf, and carefully placed the May Day photo inside. Then wandered downstairs, still in my pyjamas. The bacon smelled amazing.

When I came into the kitchen, I saw that my father was already up and fully dressed, sitting at the table. Wearing a suit in fact. This was more than a little unusual (Dad is a milkman and so of course doesn't wear a suit to work), but I was so preoccupied that it didn't quite register. My mother, bustling about at the stove, was also fully dressed and had made herself up as if she was going out. She greeted me with a bit more music in her voice than usual, "Good morning, sweetie!"

That was when I started to suspect that something was up, and my nervousness about bringing up the photographs increased immediately. As it turned out, I barely had time to mutter "morning, Mum," before she began talking, too quickly I thought.

"Listen, honey, we'll be expecting a visitor later, so could you go upstairs and get dressed? Wear your suit. Oh, and please wake up your brother. He always wants to sleep until noon. And make sure he gets dressed too!"

I had been poised to take my seat at the table, my hand on the back of the chair, and the urgent request caught me offguard. Ordinarily I might have complained that I was hungry for breakfast, but with all I had on my mind, I said sure, and headed back upstairs. I was halfway to the bedroom before I realized I'd set the book down on the kitchen table. I wasn't too happy about that, but didn't see how I could go back.

Getting dressed and convincing Dennis that Mum really did want him out of bed seemed to take forever. I was worried about the photo in the book, and kept playing various scenes in my head. At first I was terrified that one of my parents would open the book and find the photo, and I'd have to deal with their questions before I was ready. Then it occurred to me that it might be easier that way, and was almost scared that they wouldn't and I'd have to go through with my plan of trying to bring it up casually.

Eventually Dennis and I clambered downstairs, feeling stiff and uncomfortable in our fancy clothes. I was both relieved and disappointed to find the book exactly where I'd left it, at my place at the kitchen table. Back to Plan A, although now I wondered if it might not be best to wait until we found out what was going on.

We sat down at the table and dug into the hot food that Mum set before us. Unfortunately for me, while Dennis had been somewhat groggy as we came down the stairs, he perked up quickly after taking his first bite of eggs, and to my annoyance looked straight and me, and said, "Hey, Colin, did you..."

I shushed him as quietly as I could, and was relieved when my father started talking about the weather report for the next day, and wondering whether we might drive out to the countryside Sunday afternoon if the weather was pleasant. His idle chatter seemed to agitate Mum more, although she clearly didn't want to let me and Dennis know what had her so worked up. The whole time, Dennis kept shooting me questioning looks from his seat next to mine. I tried to shake my head, "no," but on the third or fifth time he did this, I must have also glanced defensively down at the book, because he set down his fork after a remarkably large bite of bacon with egg, picked up the book, and started paging through it.

I tried to not to look as he unceremoniously took the living photograph out of the book and held it out to our father, "Hey, Dad! Have you ever seen anything like this?"

And then of course I had to watch for my father's reaction.

He took it slowly, looked at it quietly for a moment before saying rather calmly, "Remarkable. Never seen anything like it, wherever did you find it?" My mother came around behind Dad's chair, craning her neck to take a look.

I hurried to respond, "We just found it," at the exact same moment that Dennis said quickly, "Colin took it! Isn't it brilliant?"

What I remember most clearly about that moment was the way that my parents looked at each other. Mum spoke first, "You'd better give him the letter."

Dad nodded slowly, then slowly reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the oddly textured envelope and handed it to me. I'd never handled parchment before and remember turning it over slowly in my hands as I inspected the calligraphy on the outside, which addressed the letter to me, and the archaic-looking wax seal.

I don't know how long I sat there in a daze. I was certainly startled when Dennis finally shoved my arm. When I looked up in surprise, he was almost vibrating in excitement as he mouthed, "Open it!" For a moment I thought this was some sort of prank that he and my parents were pulling, but another look at his face and I was certain that although clearly excited he was also just as confused as I was.

And so I opened my acceptance letter to Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft, Wizardry, and the Natural Sciences. At the quiet urgings of Mum and Dad, and more or less continual prodding from Dennis, I awkwardly read the note aloud, and passed around the list of very strange-sounding school supplies. Finally everybody else settled down enough for me to express my own extreme confusion. I remember turning the envelope over in my hands again, confirming that there was no stamp, and then turning to my father for explanation.

So, my parents slowly told the story of the strange visitor they'd had earlier in the morning. An oddly dressed and rather short gentleman named Flitwick, evidently. He'd hand-delivered the letter, and told them to make sure that I read it today. He'd said that he understood how strange all of this must seem. He'd also insisted on providing a quick demonstration. This quick demonstration, Mum told me, consisted of levitating the teapot and tea things and through some mysterious means pouring a floating cup of tea for both Mum and Dad, who (to Mum's horror, I was beginning to realize) were both still in their dressing gowns.

I can imagine my parents' stunned expressions now, as they must have gaped at the diminutive Professor Flitwick taking his leave, apologizing for the early hour, and promising to return early in the afternoon. It's no wonder that Mum had insisted that we wear suits, though if she'd known anything about Wizardkind at the time, she might have realized that such formality was unnecessary. Most wizards and witches have trouble telling the difference among Muggle garments. For his part, I'm sure that Professor Flitwick had no idea that my parents might have been at all embarrassed by the way they were dressed when he showed up unexpectedly at their door.

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**Author's notes:** The next chapter should be published on or before February 1, 2014.


	4. Chapter 3: Fixus Everythingus

**Chapter 3. Fixus Everythingus**

So that was the first introduction that my brother and I ever had to the world of magic. It was two years from that summer to the day that Dennis received his own letter. Back when my letter arrived, none of us had any idea that he was a wizard as well.

On the day I received my letter, Dennis was of course very interested in everything that happened when Professor Flitwick returned and demonstrated a fascinating selection of simple spells (with particular emphasis on Charms of course). And of course Dennis was also extremely disappointed that he wouldn't get to come along when Flitwick took me on my first shopping trip in Diagon Alley the following week. The whole family did come along on the trip to London, though, and he was somewhat placated when Mum and Dad announced that while Flitwick took me shopping, they would be taking him to the London Zoo. And later on I gave him a hefty stack of moving photographs from the shopping trip. He was absolutely beside himself.

I didn't see Dennis much over the year that followed, though at some point it did occur to me to wonder about his relationship with that spider of his, and whether he might be a wizard as well. Mostly, though, I was preoccupied with learning the ropes at Hogwarts.

I'm not quite sure how much I should write about my own Hogwarts experiences before Dennis joined me. I suppose I'm going to have to write a bit about them just to provide context. If you're a Muggle, you might be imagining that life at Hogwarts would be radically different from your everyday existence, and if you talk to some of the older Muggleborn students, that's probably exactly what they'd say. But that was before Harry Potter-Evans-Verres arrived and, with the help of the then Defense professor, turned everything upside-down. Or right-side-up, really. I guess it sort of depends on your perspective.

Anyway, when I finally boarded the Hogwarts Express, I ended up sitting with a bunch of the Weasley kids. Ginny Weasley is in my year, and Mrs. Weasley helped me out with the whole Platform 9 3/4 thing, so it seemed natural enough to sit with them. When George Weasley sat down across from Ron, Ginny, and me, he immediately picked up the shiny new copy of ___Introductory Physics_ from the top of his stack of very old and ratty looking leatherbound textbooks on far more interesting-looking topics, flipped through it, and shook his head in frustration.

"Yeah, I don't think I'll ever forgive him for this," Fred said, looking over at the book in his twin's lap.

"I always said there was something wrong with him," Ron muttered.

George closed the book, but continued to hold it in his lap. "Easy now," he said, "Look, he did save her, didn't he? Still... I think these textbooks are actually more expensive than new Transfiguration books would be. The whole thing is mad."

After a pause, he went on, "Really, though, we don't ___know_ that the new books are because of Harry."

"Oh, come off it," said Ron, "What other explanation is there?"

I thought I could mostly follow the conversation, though I wasn't sure, and I wouldn't have felt comfortable interrupting the older boys to ask what I was sure would be stupid questions. Given the brand new book in each stack, though, it was pretty clear that science was new to the Hogwarts curriculum. As Ron and his brothers got deeper into their argument about Harry, the new textbooks, and whether the twins were going to bother staying at Hogwarts for another year if they kept having to buy new books, I eventually leaned close to Ginny and asked about the one thing I was sure I didn't know anything about, "Saved who?"

"Hermione Granger," she whispered back, "Fred and George are sensitive about it because they didn't get to her before she died. Harry Potter and last year's Defense professor brought her back, so it's hard for them to stay mad. They're still furious about the number of galleons we had to put down this year for books, though. Me, I'm really glad that first years don't have any new classes other than Basic Arithmancy. That used to be an upper level elective, you know, so I can use Percy's old book. And Fred and George are sharing new books. Plus next year I can use hand-me downs from Ron. So it'll only be a few years of extra expenses for the family. I'm sure we'll get by." She bit her lip, and I got the feeling we were in sensitive territory, so I tried to steer the subject away from textbook prices.

"You said that this Harry person brought back, uh... what was her name again?"

"Hermione Granger. She'll be a second year now."

"Yeah, so Harry brought Hermione back from the dead. Is that a thing we can do? As witches and wizards I mean? Is it something we'll learn at Hogwarts, like?"

Ginny shook her head, "It's only been done that one time. No one is quite sure how it worked, either. And even the most powerful wizards are scared to try to repeat the ritual."

"Why's that?"

"Strange side effects. They're still trying to figure it all out."

"Erm... so how did she, erm... how did Hermione die?"

To my great surprise, when I posed this question, Ginny gave a strange little smile and she said, "Speaking of side effects..." Her eyes shone with mischief as she looked over at her big brothers and said sweetly, "So, George, have you managed to remember how exactly Granger died yet?"

Both twins looked over angrily, evidently to the annoyance of Ron who looked as though he'd been about to say something dreadfully witty about Harry and the textbooks.

"Do ___not_ start this up again," said Fred.

"This shite isn't funny Ginny," said George, "You weren't there."

"You have no idea what it was like."

"You wait 'til you see one of your schoolmates burned to a crisp by dragonfire," George continued.

"___Or_ kissed by a dementor," Fred went on.

The twins looked at each other with a sort of resigned confusion, then sighed.

"In any case," said George, "You don't know what it was like. It was bad."

"Evidently you don't know what it was like either, since you can't seem to agree on what happened," said Ginny softly, but I had the impression she was mostly saying it for my benefit, and that the Weasleys had been over this conversation many times before. "The really funny part is, I distinctly remember that when they got home from Hogwarts last summer Fred and George were both talking about how horrible it was seeing Hermione's head bitten off by a cave troll. All of this was before Fixus Everythingus, of course..."

"Fixus Everythingus?"

Ron explained quietly, "That's what everyone is calling the ritual that Harry and Professor Quirrel performed last summer. Everybody's memory has been mucked with."

"David Monroe," said Ginny.

"What?" said Ron.

"David Monroe," Ginny repeated, "Quirinus Quirrel was just his pseudonym, remember?"

Ron grumbled something like, "Quirrel, Monroe, name doesn't matter, the man's a creep."

"So the ritual messed with the memories of everybody who was there?" I asked.

"No, no, no," said George, "Best as we can tell, ___everybody's_ memories were affected."

"I haven't noticed anything weird," I said, cautiously.

"Hrm, you know, I haven't heard anything about Muggle Britain being affected," said Ron.

None of the others had either, evidently. So I let the question sit. That conversation was the first time I heard about the Ritual of Fixus Everythingus. It was far from the last. In fact, it was pretty much the only thing Hogwarts students talked about during my first year. There are all kinds of stories about exactly what happened in the spring and summer before I started at Hogwarts, but most of them are variations on what I heard from the Weasleys that first day on the train. The basic story goes something like this...

Basically, it's clear that some very strange things happened in the spring of 1992, all centered around a magic-intensive ritual performed by Harry and the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. There evidently used to be a kind of superstition around the position of Defense professor, so when things started to get weird, I guess nobody was surprised that he was involved. Given what I've heard about the activities of previous Defense professors, though, I guess the whole thing was probably a pretty big relief to most people. In fact, I guess a lot of people would say that it was (literally!) the best thing that could have happened.

Magical Britain certainly was happy enough to elect David Monroe as Minister of Magic after the dust settled, so they seemed ready enough to forgive what he and Harry did. He's a very popular Minister, too. Handsome, charming, well-spoken, and most people celebrate what they call his no-nonsense approach to everything. There are only a few people like Ron who still think there's something wrong with Monroe. In his collaborations with the Lucius Malfoy, who is currently acting as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Minister Monroe seems to have done wonders to increase Muggle-awareness among witches and wizards, if not universal Muggle-tolerance. Well, maybe some of those changes had to do with the ritual as well. There are reasons why everyone refers to it as "The Ritual of Fixus Everythingus." It didn't fix everything, obviously, but a lot of things are a lot better. Wizard-Muggle relations is one of them. Hermione later told me that the Muggle phobia she had to deal with when she first arrived was something horrible. I definitely didn't encounter any of that when I got here, and I'm not sure how much of that could be explained by the Minister alone. Nor am I at all sure that the Ministry would have had much influence over McGonnagall's decision to change the name of Hogwarts.

At any rate, there's a lot we don't know about Fixus Everythingus. It does seem pretty clear that the reason that Harry and Mr. Monroe invented this ritual in the first place was to bring Hermione Granger back from the dead. And in that sense, no one can disagree that it worked. Hermione is not only alive, but is doing great. I see her every week at the Chaos Club meetings, and she's generally the most talkative person there. On the other hand, it's also clear that even now she's really angry with Harry. Neville told me once that Harry and Hermione used to be best friends. Not anymore. Neither of them talks openly about it in public, but everybody can tell it's somehow related to the ritual. And that's not even touching the weird memory effects or the other strange stuff that's happened, some of it very disturbing. I don't really know what Harry was expecting from the ritual, but I'm pretty sure he didn't get whatever it was. Ron disagrees about this by the way. He hates Harry and Monroe both, and can't seem to decide that whether he'd prefer to assume the that the side effects were gross incompetence or simply what the two dark wizards intended all along. Ron's in the minority though. Most witches and wizards are happy to embrace Fixus Everythingus as a new and powerful light ritual, but given the side effects, it is also generally accepted that Fixus Everythingus is also an extremely dangerous ritual, only to be attempted by the most proficient wizards and witches, and only after thorough review by the Ministry of Magic.

What makes the ritual so hazardous? If the rumor mill is to be believed, even the ritual's inventors don't know the answer. Even the specific side effects are not well-known. Asside from the memory issues, it seems that some people's personalities changed as well, though it's even more difficult to pin down the exact changes than to get a consistent report of the events that occurred that year. That's not all, though. It was that first day on the Hogwarts Express that I heard the most unsettling rumor associated with Fixus Everythingus:

"I mean," said Ron, "I don't see how everybody can be so certain that Fixus Everythingus is a light ritual. It was right afterward that Dumbledore took himself over to the Department of Mysteries and voluntarily walked through the Veil."

The Veil, I learned, is a mysterious artifact kept at the Department of Mysteries that everybody seems to agree is the gateway to the land of the dead, or at least that it kills you, anyway. In any case, nobody has crossed it and ever come back.

"Yeah, well," Fred had responded, "Good riddance, anyway. Dumbledore was trouble. If it hadn't been for him, Hermione wouldn't have died in the first place."

Ron couldn't let that stand, though, "No way. Dumbledore was the greatest wizard who ever lived. And he'd still be our Headmaster if it weren't for that little creep Harry."

George just shrugged, and Ginny looked at me as if to say, "You see?"

Everyone was quiet for a bit and then George spoke suddenly, "Hey, Ron, did you see the recordings of the school championship Quidditch match between Durmstrang and The Brazilian Wizarding School? What'd you think of that save by Krum?"

I didn't know what Quidditch was, but I could tell where things were going: this was going to be a long and animated conversation about sport. I glanced at Ginny, hopefully, since a lot of times girls aren't into sport, but she was leaning in just as enthusiastically as Ron. I let the four of them, Ginny, Ron, and the twins, go on for about five minutes before I decided that I was correct in my suspicion that it was going to be one of ___those_ conversations. At that point, I quietly took my leave to see if I could find a quieter compartment. Maybe I could start reading my Charms textbook. That looked intersting.

I tried to wave to everybody when I left, but they were all too preoccupied to respond, so I just shrugged and left.

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**Author's notes:** The next chapter should be published on or before February 14, 2014.


End file.
